1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to equipment, an authentication processing method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there is known an image forming apparatus that has a user authentication function. The authentication function is used to limit a function available to a user or to manage a usage status, for example. The authentication function is also used to cause the image forming apparatus to operate in cooperation with a personal computer device, a device other than a personal computer device, an application program (hereinafter, “application”), or the like. Hereinafter, authentication performed when starting using an image forming apparatus is referred to as “main body authentication”.
Main body authentication is generally performed using a character string, such as a user ID (identification) and a password, as user identification information. Alternatively, an authentication process may be performed as follows. An IC card is issued to a user or a group. Authentication is performed by using a unique identification number granted to the IC card as user identification information. This scheme eliminates the trouble of entering the character string each time the image forming apparatus is used. A scheme of retrieving the user identification information by associating the identification number unique to the IC card with the user identification information to use the retrieved information in the authentication process is also known. Hereinafter, this authentication process using an IC card is referred to as “IC card authentication process”. This scheme allows the image forming apparatus to acquire the user identification information only by bringing, by a user, the IC card in proximity of a card reader. For this reason, this scheme can facilitate the procedure for the authentication process.
A situation where the authentication process using an IC card is requested is not limited to the main body authentication; the authentication process can be requested by a started application. In this case, a user has to perform an operation of causing the IC card to be read again. Because the user is required to perform the IC card reading operation not only at the main body authentication but also after the main body authentication, operability of the image forming apparatus degrades.